Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch

Welcome toAfrica Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog.Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom ofExpression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace inDRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library

Monday, June 27, 2011

President Habyarimana protected Tutsis between October 1990 and April 1994 as much as he could

Peter
Erlinder, the American lawyer that Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda,
imprisoned for three weeks in Kigali on May 28, 2010 has unveiled not
well known truth about the prevailing political and security context of
Rwanda prior to April 1994 in an article titled The UN Security Council ad hoc Rwanda tribunal: international justice or judicially-constructed “victor’s impunity”?].
The document was published in the De Paul Journal of Social Justice in
the fall of 2010. It reveals some facts significantly worth
highlighting, particularly for those that RPF propaganda has lied to for
years. Among those lies one is about the former president Habyarimana
and his regime’s relationship with Tutsis inside Rwanda particularly
during the RPF guerrilla war which lasted almost three years and half,
from October 1, 2010 to July 4, 1994.

Habyarimana Juvenal, the Rwandan President 1973-1994

Despite
the troubled and war time that the country experienced between October
1, 1990, date of RPF invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, and the day he died
on April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana demonstrated a humanity towards
Tutsis inside Rwanda that RPF would not dare to credit him for, because
this would deprive Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, of claiming that
he has been their saviour. Having said that, Robert Flatten, U.S.
Ambassador to Rwanda who was in Kigali during most of the RPF guerrilla
war, paints a portrait of Habyarimana’s security measures which
significantly limited the impact of the war on Tutsis while he was still
alive:“…leaders from all sides have begun to realize the more
terrifying implications of an RPF march to Kigali. No matter how many
Hutus the RPF may have representing it, it is perceived in Rwanda as an
essentially Tutsi organisation. Should this group break through to
Kigali, all the fears of the Hutu majority of again being subjected to
slavery or feudal vassalage will be resurfaced. When threatened with the
restoration of the feudal system, the Hutus on the collines (hills)
will begin to eliminate their Tutsi neighbours. When this happened in
1990….Habyarimana sent an army unit to stop it. When it happened in
Bugesera in March 1992, the Gendarmes eventually arrived to encourage
the restoration of calm. This was done with an administration and
communications in place, neither of which would be the case should
Kigali fall to the RPF.”
The assassination on April 6, 1994 of the two Presidents, Habyarimana
of Rwanda and Ntaryamira of Burundi, when the aeroplane they were
travelling in was shot down while attempting to land at Kanombe airport,
was interpreted in many Rwandans’ understanding as the fall of Kigali
in the hands of the attacker of the country – the Rwandan Patriotic
Front of Paul Kagame. Ultimately Robert Flatten’s predictions became
reality: Hutus on hills fearing a restoration of the feudal system and
being subjected again to slavery, began eliminating their Tutsi
neighbours.
The same way there is nothing like experience, as well there is
nothing like bad experience. It is usually said that we learn from our
past. But when it’s from an inconvenient one, our learning becomes
unfortunate for those who turn into its victims. Peter Erlinder
explains:“The former Rwandan Tutsi aristocracy faced discrimination as
foreigners in Uganda, and many of the children of the displaced
Rwandan-Tutsi aristocracy (including a teenage Paul Kagame) threw their
lot in with the National Resistance Army (NRA) of Yoweri Museveni, who
led armed rebellion against the elected government of President Milton
Obote that took some 500,000 lives between 1981 and 1986, particularly
in the Luwero Triangle.”
Early 1994, the CIA Kigali desk predicted that between 300,000 and
500,000 lives would perish if President Habyarimana was killed. Such
predictions were apparently based on the prevailing political and
security situation in Rwanda and the whole region. The main supporting
factor was particularly the impact of the assassination in October 1993
by Tutsi military extremists of the ever first Hutu President who had
been democratically elected in neighbouring sister country of Burundi.
They had done it in the Triangle of Luwero a few years before. And as
a consequence Yoweri Museveni got into power in 1986. If with a similar
scenario of getting a near close number of casualties, they could get
this time power in Rwanda, what could stop them? Paul Kagame and his RPF
rebel movement played their cards and got the expected reward: leading
the country since July 4, 1994. Now, they and their U.S. and U.K.
friends have worked hard since to blame Hutus for most of the killings
which occurred starting from the RPF’s invasion of Rwanda from Uganda.
But truth and time are catching with the liars.
No one contests the occurrence of the Rwandan genocide. The only
cloud remains around the narrative of Kigali about what happened and how
events unfolded. The Rwandan government’s story has only so far served
to protect its promoters from being prosecuted. On October 2009 the
conclusion of the three judges’ panel at the ICTR in Militarly-I 98-41-T
cleared of any conspiracy to commit genocide the four most sought after
and supposedly master-minders. The judges’ conclusion implies that
there are the real planners of the Rwandan genocide out there who are
still enjoying impunity.
The 500,000 lives which were killed in the Luwero Triangle between
1981 and 1986 seem to have gone down in history without any justice
since President Joweri Museveni of Uganda who was leading the NRA rebel
at the time has today spent 25 years in power benefiting from total
impunity. The UN Mapping Report
has made some dent in Kagame’s impunity about his numerous crimes since
his time in Uganda as Chief Intelligence. However, there is a long way
to go to make him accountable for his whole responsibility in the
Rwandan genocide and many other crimes which characterise his
personality. It is ironic how those among leaders in the Great Lakes who
behaved humanly ended up and the criminals who got the upper hand. Evil
has so far triumphed against good. Let’s hope for the better.